After hearing her, Uchiha Hikaru stroked his chin and nodded thoughtfully before saying skeptically, "But... I remember the collapsed vein wasn't a crystal mine. It was just an ordinary silver mine."
Hearing that, Miss Kobayashi had no idea how to keep making things up. In her panic, she pointed at the necklace. "Look, isn't the material used to set the amethyst at the top of that necklace silver?"
At Miss Kobayashi's words, Uchiha Hikaru looked at the necklace as she indicated. However, it was inside a display case, so the material set into it could not be seen clearly. Still, if someone insisted it was silver, plenty of people would believe it.
Before Uchiha Hikaru could finish examining it, Miss Kobayashi struck while the iron was hot. "And you know our silver mines have all collapsed, so jewelry made from silver has naturally gone up in price. That's why all those ladies who like buying jewelry have turned their attention to crystals. When these merchants saw that crystals were selling well, of course they raised the prices. There's nothing strange about that."
Her explanation had already left Uchiha Hikaru utterly stunned. At that point, he had no time to spot the holes in Miss Kobayashi's story or determine whether the necklace had really increased in price. Instead, he felt that it was a waste for Miss Kobayashi to spend all her time doing needlework at the Textile Association. She was clearly an incredible con artist.
So Uchiha Hikaru nodded blankly, accepting her explanation, and stopped dwelling on whether she wanted to buy the necklace.
At that moment, Miss Kobayashi also let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, Uchiha Hikaru had not continued to suspect her. She felt as if she had used up every lie she would ever tell in